A Quick Birthday Update

Today is my birthday, and I have absolutely no plans. I thought I would be depressed by this, but it's actually a bit freeing. Usually I set up all kinds of plans and expectations only to be disappointed when they fall through- I don't have a very good track record when it comes to birthdays. This year, however, there is no way I will be disappointed. After being woken up at 6am by my family calling from New York to wish me a happy birthday, I went back to bed, and at noon, I am still there. In a few minutes, I will head out to town to use the internet and pick up some groceries, and that will be the extent of my birthday activities.
I did celebrate a little yesterday, with a birthday lunch at Mike and Geri's. Actually, it was more like a birthday feast, easily the best meal I've had since moving to Botswana. They grilled three enormous T-bone steaks and served them with chard, carrots, and potatoes, topped off with homemade carrot cake and Oreos for dessert. We sat for hours, feasting and discussing various issues surrounding our work here and sharing experiences. I am very lucky to share my site with such amazing, generous people.
As a quick follow-up to the previous entry, the baby is home and doing well. She spent four days in the hospital on IV antibiotics, having been diagnosed with an infection probably acquired during birth, and came home on Thursday afternoon. I've been over almost every day since, and have found some great new friends in Shana and Wilton. Shana knows me well enough to understand that I have a weakness for babies, and hands her baby over to me almost immediately upon my arrival. The baby is still tiny, but she is growing some extremely pudgy cheeks, and is the most alert newborn I have ever seen. She looks around at everything with her enormous eyes, trying her hardest to focus on things she couldn't possibly see clearly yet so that she often looks cross-eyed. Wilton and I discuss differences in culture and politics in Botswana, Zimbabwe, and the United States, and while we all share a collective homesickness, we also share an appreciation for where we are. I have been lending them movies, and Shana is now among the throngs of young women who have fallen under the spell of 'The Notebook.”
At some point between the MosadiMogolo match and this four day weekend, something changed for me. I can't quite figure out when or how it happened, but somehow I feel different. All of a sudden, life here isn't such a daily struggle. Small tasks and chores are no longer exhausting events, but mindless activities. Evenings are still long and boring, but I don't spend them listening for strange sounds and wishing to be home. The bus rank no longer feels overwhelming and chaotic, and crowded combi rides are routine. Even the small kids shouting 'lekgoa' at me as I pass have become just part of the scenery. Everything feels, well, ordinary. I get still get mental flashes reminding me that I am living thousands of miles away from home in Africa, but they don't get to me the way they used to. Of course I still miss my family and friends, but it's tolerable now. I don't spend every day in an active struggle not to call the country director to ask for a plane ticket home. I'm not saying that this is the end of my homesickness and that everything will be easy from here on out. In fact, I'm sure that's not the case at all. But this crazy Peace Corps experience is now my life, for better or for worse, and maybe I'm finally beginning to accept it.

Tangled

The day started out exactly as I thought it would, with me hitting the snooze button and protesting the injustice of having to be up with the sun on a Sunday to an invisible audience. I stumbled through my morning routine (which has been whittled down to about 10 minutes), and sleepwalked to my clinic. I arrived seven minutes late, and was met by three members of our Mosadi Mogolo team. Three. Of course, this was also exactly what I expected. I always thought I had trouble showing up to events on time, but my habitual tardiness is nothing compared to that of nearly everyone here. Time runs differently here, and outstanding patience is the norm. There is never any fear that an event will start without a key person, or that a bus will leave while someone is using the restroom (or bush...). People here like to say that they respect and value people more than time, and while one might argue that making people wait isn't exactly showing respect, I guess they have a point. In any case, the three were soon joined by the rest of their teammates, who trickled in one by one, in no particular rush. Our transport, which was one of our district's ambulances, showed up 30 minutes after we were supposed to have left. Thirty minutes after that, we were finally on our way to our match in the neighboring village of Tewane, with the team crammed in the back of the ambulance.
Tewane is a very small village, and as the driver of the ambulance joked to me, it's not much more than a settled cattle post. There is a clinic there, but it falls under my clinic's ultimate responsibility. Despite their size, however, they have a team in the tournament, and they were well prepared to host us. We arrived at about 9am, and already the staff was hard at work cooking and setting up for the event. We were served tea and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Note that those are two different types of sandwiches here- peanut butter sandwiches and jelly sandwiches. I was laughed at when I suggested putting them together. I didn't get to eat anything though, because I waited for everyone else to go first, and then was called by my counterpart to head over to the field to help set up before it was my turn. I wasn't too upset though. Tea isn't really my thing, and 9am is a little early for peanut butter sandwiches, anyway.
If I hadn't realized before what a big event the Mosadi Mogolo World Cup is before, I sure know it now. Chairs were set up for the spectators, the field was marked, and a DJ was hired to provide traditional music. By 10:30am, the tournament finally began. While the other two teams played the first soccer match, my team was the first to go through the quiz portion. The entire quiz was in Setswana, so I really don't know any of the specifics, but I do know that the questions were about HIV/AIDS transmission and the PMTCT program, that it involved a demonstration of proper formula feeding technique, and that while my team did the best they could, they definitely struggled. I believe stage fright was their excuse. The questioning took a lot longer than I thought it would, and I was nearly as relieved as my team when it was over. We watched the rest of the first game together, and then it was our turn to play. As I mentioned before, I am not quite a Mosadi Mogolo yet, so I wasn't allowed to play. Eleven of our players went out with bright green jerseys and played their hearts out. They did well despite their lack of practice and some injuries, but it wasn't enough to defeat the other teams. I, on the other hand, was fighting a small battle of my own. The day was bright and sunny, and I had realized early on that I had forgotten sunscreen. I stayed in the shade as much as possible, but between the sun and the lack of food early in the day, I had set myself up for a long day. I ate some peanuts and raisins at the start of the first game, but I knew it wasn't enough. When halftime came around, I ate an orange, just like the rest of the players. Halfway through the orange, however, I realized that the thought of one more bite made my stomach twist, and that if I didn't find a seat somewhere fast, I was going to end up on the ground. Finding no available chair, I squatted in the dirt and put my head down, and stayed like that for quite some time, willing my food to stay in my stomach and my dizziness to subside long enough for me to stand up. Eventually one of the women on the team noticed me and offered her chair, where I stayed for the rest of the two games. By the end of of the final game, I was feeling slightly better, especially because I thought that the end of the games meant that I would soon be at home. I was wrong, as usual. We stayed to help pack up, and then we all made our way over to the community center where we were served traditional Setswana food for dinner. I choked some down, and waited, feeling guilty for not mixing in with everyone else and getting the most out of the experience. Finally, it was time to go. The ambulance brought us back to the clinic, and I walked home, feeling better and better as I got closer and closer to my bed.
Sadly, my bed would have to wait a while longer. On my family compound, there are four houses- mine, my landlord's, some lady's, and one very tiny shack occupied by a young Zimbabwean couple with a brand new baby. The new mother, Shana, is a patient at my clinic as well as my neighbor, so I'd been following her case pretty closely. She came into the clinic on Monday with some bleeding, and we sent her to the hospital, sure that they would deliver the baby by the end of the day. Instead, she stayed in the hospital, and didn't deliver until they finally did a c-section on Wednesday night. By Friday, she and the baby were home. This is Shana's first baby, and she is here in Botswana without a mother, sister, or an aunt to help her out, so I was sure to check on her on Friday and Saturday, and helped with washing the baby and answering some basic questions. She was doing pretty well, so I almost didn't check on them after the MosadiMogolo match. I was feeling sunsick and tired, it was already dark, and everything seemed to be going okay for them. However, I had promised that I would check on them when I got home, so I knocked on the door. The father, Wilton, was watching television, and Shana was lying on the bed next to the baby. “She's feeling a little warm today,” Shana told me casually when I asked how the baby was doing. The one room cement house was sweltering even in the chilly winter evening, so I wasn't surprised. Then she added that the baby hadn't been feeding well, a very alarming sign in a newborn. I unpeeled the layers of blankets to find a flushed, sleeping baby. Leaving all the blankets off, I ran to my house and dug through my Peace Corps health kit to find a disposable thermometer. I ran back and stuck it under the baby's arm, and made awkward conversation as we waited for the result. The minute passed, and I took the reading-102F. I'm not a doctor, but even I knew that was too high- it would be a high fever for me, let alone a 3-day old newborn. I texted my own mom as well as the head nurse at my clinic, who both confirmed that the baby would need to see a doctor as soon as possible. Not knowing how to go about this on a Sunday night in Botswana, I knocked on the door of my landlady, who is also a nurse in my district. She was horrified that the baby had been home all day with such a high fever and that she hadn't known about it, and after scolding the parents, she quickly arranged for transport to the hospital. Before I knew what was happening, I was in the car holding the baby in one arm and comforting the now frightened and sobbing new mother with the other. Bed was a distant dream. Fear is contagious, and I spent the car ride anxiously monitoring the baby's breathing and looking for signs of febrile seizure. We pulled up in front of the emergency entrance, and the three of us entered with no idea of what to do or where to go. I looked to the parents for direction, but they were looking to me in the same way. Finally someone told Wilton where he had to go to handle paying and checking in, while Shana and I were pointed in the general direction of the emergency room. In the emergency department, there was no receptionist at the desk. Every bench in the waiting room was full, mostly occupied by tired mothers and small children with dull, glassy eyes wrapped in blankets. It was obviously a busy night, but no one seemed rushed, and the bright lights and beeping machines and general atmosphere of chaos and slight panic found in any ER in the US was definitely missing. Instead, the room was dim and quiet, and the atmosphere was subdued, with an air of impatient resignation. Someone mercifully made room for Shana to sit down, since she was still recovering from her c-section, but I stood holding the baby while we waited, fighting hard to push away the dizziness and nausea I had been feeling earlier. We waited and waited, and Wilton came back, and we waited some more. No one seemed to be moving, so Wilton took the baby while I ventured into the actual emergency room to investigate. A man with a chunk of his leg missing was calmly rolled in past me on a stretcher, and two nurses sat at a small desk evaluating a patient. Upon questioning them, I learned that the hospital only keeps one doctor on duty in the emergency department after 4:30pm, and they were waiting for him to return from a call. This seemed an unacceptable and ridiculous policy to me, but there was nothing to be done about it. Eventually I cornered a nurse and explained our story, and she was able to give the baby some medication to keep the fever down while we waited. Shortly after that, we pushed our way into the consultation room regardless of whether it was our turn or not, and had the baby evaluated. The fever had barely budged, and the nurse decided (surprise, surprise) that the baby would have to see a doctor. They situated Shana and the baby with a bed. No one had any idea when the doctor would be coming back, and it looked like it would be a long night. I was prepared to settle in for the long haul, but Wilton made arrangements for someone to pick us up and bring us home for the night, while Shana would stay with the baby. I didn't like this arrangement one bit, since it would mean leaving them alone, but the point was made that if they were admitted at 2am, I would have no way to get home, so I reluctantly agreed. I left Shana with strict instructions to text me with any news or developments, and met our ride outside and went home at around 10pm. Finally faced with the opportunity to sleep, I was no longer tired. Actually, that's not accurate at all. I was exhausted beyond the point of sleep. I texted the nurse at my clinic and my landlady to let them know how the baby was doing, and spoke to my mom on the phone to debrief the evening's events. I took some medicine for the headache my fatigue had burst into, made myself something to eat, and wandered around the house aimlessly. Eventually, Shana texted me to let me know that they had been seen by the doctor and been admitted overnight, and I was able to settle down and head off to sleep.
The next morning, I arrived at work hours late, having beaten my alarm clock into submission when it rang at 7am. Everyone was very nice about it, and I ended up sitting in a room with our community health educator and our community mobilizer chatting about recent events. They were concerned about the baby of course, but they had more news for me: Eva had passed away over the weekend. I was saddened, especially thinking about her family, but not surprised. We were supposed to go for a follow up home visit the week before, but when it was time to go, we were informed that she had been admitted to the hospital. She was so weak and so sick that I couldn't help but feel a little relief for her, knowing that she's beyond suffering now. I didn't know her personally, not enough to truly mourn, but she will always be with me. She was the first AIDS patient I ever met, and she will live on as my motivation for working to prevent suffering like hers.
I knew when I was assigned with work in Botswana as a health volunteer specializing in HIV/AIDS that I would see all the comings and goings of life, births as well as deaths, but there is no way to understand what that really means until you really experience it. I am still at the beginning of my service, and I still don't fully understand it, but I am beginning to see that I will not be able to observe these events as an detached bystander. I have been here at site for less than two months and I am already tangled up and involved beyond my expectations, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Mosadi Mogolo

written 7/7/10
In two weeks, I will officially be a mosadi mogolo. Mosadi mogolo means 'old lady' here, which is most definitely not a derogatory term at all here. Rather, it is used to show respect, or when applied to someone who is obviously not an 'old lady', to draw out a chuckle. Of course, I am not an old lady, but according to the official rules of the Mosadi Mogolo World Cup, I will qualify as one when I turn 25 in two weeks. This brings back a memory of 10th grade history class, when one of my classmates declared to the teacher that life pretty much ends once you turn 25- not knowing that the next day was the teacher's 25th birthday. Now it is my turn, and 25 does not sound old at all, and life had better not end for me in two weeks. All that will happen, I am quite sure, is that I will finally be able to rent a car and book any hotel room I want in the US, and apparently, I will become a mosadi mogolo here.
The Mosadi Mogolo World Cup is my first community event here in Botswana, and our entire sub-district is participating, with nearly every town, village, and catchment area represented. The event is run by our district health team, and it involves a World Cup football (soccer) series in which only women over 25 years old can compete. There are weeks of matches, which will culminate in a World Cup final in about 3 weeks. The score of the football match is not the only factor in winning the cup, however. After the match, each team faces off to prove their knowledge of HIV/AIDS and the PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission program) program. Their score on the quiz round is added to their score in the football match to determine the winner. The event was run last year, but this is the first year that my clinic has put together a team, which started holding practices on Monday. We are the definition of underdogs, with very little skill and not even enough players to fill all the field positions, much less the reserves. But we have heart. These ladies, ranging in age from 25 to older than 60, show up for an HIV/AIDS study session every day from 2-3pm, and then practice from 3-5pm. They have a coach who runs drills and urges them to “kick with power”. It is a pretty funny sight, to see all these women of various ages and states of physical fitness running and kicking across the field, with their small children trailing after them laughing and imitating. I've never seen anything quite like it, but I admire them. They are serious during the study sessions, and ask questions about difficult English words like 'cryptococcal meningitis' and 'immunodeficiency', and they seem to really enjoy themselves out on the field. I hope they do well in our first match, which will be held on Sunday.
A few entries ago, I was explaining, and almost lamenting, that I didn't have a lot of activities to fill my days with. This has changed drastically in a very short time. Now I have all sorts of demands on my time, and I wonder how I will be able to keep this up once I really start working on projects. My clinic is demanding more and more of time as the H1N1 campaign rolls forward. As many as 50-60 people will show up in one morning to get the vaccine, and for an already understaffed clinic that also must attend to every other health need the community has, the situation can become overwhelming quickly. I am not allowed to administer vaccines, but just collecting the charts and documenting the vaccines takes a bit of the pressure off the nurses. I also answer the phone (although I don't think this helps much- Setswana is tough enough for me to understand in person, let alone on the phone, and I always have to get someone else anyway), find lab results, and count pills (but I don't distribute them, as that would be another big no-no for a PCV). The clinic is chaotic and crowded in the mornings, but empty and sleepy in afternoons, so I think if my clinic had its way, I would be there every morning. Of course, Botswana is a very morning-oriented country, so every other organization or school I want to meet and work with also wants me to come in the mornings- and there's only so many places I can be at once! To my clinic's dismay, I spent the first hour of the morning today at the local primary school, and I will be spending the entire day, morning included, at the senior secondary school. I understand that the clinic is busy and needs extra hands, but at some point we need to compromise. Peace Corps volunteers are supposed to be working on capacity building projects and community programs and education, not doing simple tasks that anyone can do and that the clinic staff will have to do on their own once the volunteer leaves. It's like hiring a teacher, but keeping her in the back office making photocopies. Of course I'll do the smaller tasks too. The clinic needs help with them, and I'm here to help. I'm not above it. But it's not all I should be doing. My primary job should be promoting the clinic's agenda and message out in the community and in the schools, and working within the clinic to help it provide better service to its patients. Putting stickers in charts is important, but not something to spend 20 hours a week doing.
Along with the needs of the clinic, the meetings I have had in the last couple weeks are slowly turning into real demands on my time. As I noted in previous entries, the secondary school is going to take a lot of my time, probably almost as much as the clinic. Yesterday, a man from the technical school stopped by the clinic to ask if I could help out with some life skills and health education issues, and I am waiting for his call to set something up. And today I spent part of my morning at a local primary school, and it looks like I will be spending a significant part of my time there, too. The kids range in age from 6-15, and although I will primarily be working with the guidance teacher on life skills and health, I'll probably also be helping out the teachers with their lessons, especially the English teachers. I was introduced to the entire school this morning, which was quite an experience. At the beginning of every day, the kids gather in lines according to age group in front of the school for the 'assembly'. Once gathered, they sing several songs (mostly religious, as is common anywhere in Botswana- it's also co-run by the Catholic church, so it makes even more sense here), and are spoken to by the headmaster, the guidance teacher, and a nun (also a teacher). Parts of these speeches seemed to be a practiced dialogue, and the kids knew all the responses. Because this is a primary school, everything was in Setswana, so I didn't really get a lot of it. After the speeches, it was my turn. As usual, I was introduced as being from the UK. Apparently the people here don't recognize accents well, because I've been told that I am from England, Australia, and South Africa- anywhere that there is an abundance of white people. Today at the clinic, I was told that I have a European voice. When I corrected the teacher and told the kids that I was from America, I got a collective awed gasp from my audience, followed by a louder one when I said that I was from New York. New York is one of the few American cities that everyone here recognizes, and I always get a good reaction when I tell people I lived near there. I blame Jay-Z, since I can't get through two days here without hearing “Empire State of Mind”. Anyway, the kids were very attentive, even if they were a bit giggly, and soon my part of the show was over. They sang a couple more songs, and were dismissed. Even the dismissal was orchestrated- the kids peeled off in their lines row by row while singing “We Are Marching in the Light of God”, and headed off to class. I stuck around and met the teachers, who seemed unconcerned that all of their students were sitting in their classrooms unattended while they were introduced to the strange American. After our meeting, I entertained the guidance teacher's class for a few minutes before heading back to the clinic while she attended to something. The kids in the class were 7 and 8 years old, and their English skills were minimal, so we were a bit limited. I taught them the word 'map' and drew one to show where I was from, and had them point out Botswana. Classes for this age are usually taught in Setswana, but when they are older, they will be taught in English only. This seems a little strange to me, almost like the kids are set up to fail. Some kids don't even speak Setswana at home. In Mahalapye this is less of a problem, but in some parts of the country, many people speak Kalanga or Sesarwa or Afrikaans at home. As one PCV put it on her blog (this won't be exact, but it was a good example), imagine growing up speaking English at home, but then starting school at age 6 and being taught in Spanish only. You are then taught French using Spanish, and when you hit high school, you are expected to learn everything else- science, math, history- in French, your third language. It would get a little confusing, to say the least. I can't imagine having to do it, but I'm impressed at how well these kids adapt to it. I'm having trouble just learning Setswana! I'm waiting for the guidance teacher's call to find out when I'll be headed back, to help out on a regular basis, but I think it will be soon.
Not only do I have these schools and my clinic playing for my attentions, but I'm also supposed to be doing my community assessment, and I still haven't met with even half the groups that I wanted to meet with. I also still have to make it over to the hospital and the prison, even if it's just to find out more about their services and their connection to the community as a whole. I'm just going to take it week by week for now. I have plenty of time before In-Service training at the end of August, and even more time before my term of service in Botswana is over. As I was standing this afternoon with the sun beating down on my head, watching my mosadi mogolos running down the field through the dried grass and into the deep blue sky, the woman organizing the team mentioned that she hoped for a better team next year. I looked at her and agreed that next year we would have enough time and experience to pull together a very strong team- and then realized what I said. I will be here next year. I'm not just passing through, and I am not just a visitor. I don't have to get everything done in the next few weeks, because my departure is not imminent. I live here, and this is my community. I'm not staying forever, but I am staying. It's not something that I can come to terms with yet in the evenings, when often all I can think about is home and family and friends, but there in that field today, I accepted it without thinking. I will be here next year.

Independence Day

written 7/4/10

Today, I cleaned my house, had friends over for the afternoon, grilled burgers, ate junk food, and drank wine. Sounds like a fairly typical low-key 4th of July doesn't it? If you can overlook that we were the only 4 people celebrating the 4th for miles and miles, the burgers were grilled and eaten indoors, we were all wearing sweaters and fleeces, and there were certainly no fireworks, I guess it was. It was actually a pretty nice day, overall. I love having people over, and can't wait until I have my house really set up the way I want it- with a table and chairs and maybe an area rug- so I can do it more often. I also can't wait until we all have the freedom to visit each other whenever we want. Ironically, our Independence Day plans centered on our very lack of independence. Our Peace Corps group is currently on lock-down, which is the 2-3 month period between the end of pre-service training and the beginning of in-service training when we are not allowed to leave our sites unless it's for official Peace Corps business. We are supposed to be spending all of our time integrating into our communities, which I can understand, but it also leads to a lot of volunteers going a little stir- crazy, especially on weekends, and especially, especially on holiday weekends. There's only so much community integration a person can handle, and only so much community integration the locals will tolerate before they start thinking we're a little strange. Thank goodness my village has 3 other Peace Corps volunteers so we can visit each other without ever leaving site.
While we all reminisced and talked wistfully about firework shows we were missing back home, I couldn't help but think that here in Botswana, we have a pretty impressive show in the sky every night. Last night I was outside my house after dark (which almost never happens), and happened to glance up. In Molepolole, I often stared into the night sky, mesmerized by the stars that could never be seen a mere hour away from New York City, prompting my host mother to shake her head at the crazy American- apparently star-gazing is not a popular activity here. Last night, however, I found that the night sky in Molepolole was nothing compared to the night sky here. I'm sure the show is even better in the tiny villages without any electricity, but there are no streetlights in my part of town, and no one uses their outdoor lights around here, so there was very little to pollute the view. I said before that I find the dark oppressive here, and I do. It wraps around me like a blanket- some nights I can almost touch it. The stars, then, are all the more powerful, their light piercing through the tangible darkness and reaching down to the earth from the heavens. They are strong, and they are many. People are always talking about the African sky in some romantic way, imagining an bright orange sun setting over a wide, hazy savannah, perhaps with a giraffe off in the horizon. Or maybe they imagine a deep blue sky spread over a vast landscape of foreign trees and dirt roads, with white clouds far off above them. These images catch my imagination, too, and they certainly exist here. The sky here has a personality and moods of its own, reflecting the people and the lands it covers. The cheerful, solid blue the sky takes on nearly every day here certainly matches the attitudes of the Batswana I meet every day. Despite poverty, HIV, unemployment, and other hardships people face here, I have never seen a Motswana greet without a smile and a handshake, and the music people play is unfailingly upbeat and optimistic. And indeed, how can you wallow or mourn with the bright blue sky looking down on you every day? It's no coincidence that their flag is the same color as their sky.
No matter how beautiful or how symbolic the daytime sky can be, however, it is the night sky that captivates me and draws me in with its mystery. The African sky is no less impressive after its majestic sunset. Without tall buildings and trees to obstruct the view, the sky stretches up from every corner of the earth. It's easy to see how the ancient people believed the sky to be a dome over the land, separating the heavens from the earth, the point at which mortal meets immortal, and time meets eternity. In a way, the night sky is where time meets eternity: we see the stars today as they were millions of years ago. We see light from the past, even from the beginnings of the universe when it all began. Millions of years from now, the light our own star gives off today, the light that we see and work and play by, will be seen lightyears away. Our time on this earth will have long past, but in that moment, something of it will live on. The stars are countless, forming pictures across the sky. Some of these pictures are familiar from the northern sky despite their strange new positions, but some are new and nameless to me. They converge in a great bright strip, the Milky Way, clearly visible to me for the first time in my life. I stare straight into the center, trying to imagine the innumerable far-off planets and solar systems that must accompany each distant star, then look away, off into deep space, picturing new galaxies in the darkest patches of sky, where the stars are too far away to be seen with the naked eye.
Somehow, I don't think I'll miss fireworks too much while I'm here.

Life Goes On

written 7/2

And life in the Peace Corps inches on slowly. This weekend, the 4^th of July will pass by without the usual fireworks and pomp and circumstance, and next week will bring the 3 month anniversary of our arrival in Botswana. One of the phrases most likely to be heard from a Peace Corps volunteer (I may have even already used it in this blog) is that the days drag on slowly, but the months fly by. I am finding this to be true, although it is the evenings more than the days that drag on for me. The days pass rather quickly, and I rarely finish everything on my to-do list. This may imply that I am busy, hard at work making a difference fighting HIV and poverty, but so far, this is not the case. I spend most of my weekday mornings at my clinic documenting H1N1 vaccinations. It is mindless work, but right now it's what my under-staffed clinic needs, and as I'm not yet ready to fly on my own and create new projects for the clinic, it's fine with me. When I am not at the clinic, I am usually off meeting someone from an organization I feel I could be working with on future projects, at the local schools where I know I'll be doing a lot of work, or at home working on the massive community assessment assignment from Peace Corps that must be completed before In Service Training at the end of August. Running errands is another major consumer of time, made more complicated by limited shopping hours, the need to be home before dark, and the need to rely on public transportation. And due to the lack of structure in my days, I can often be found at home curled up on my couch reading a book at all sorts of unpredictable hours. Before arriving at site, I thought that having to be home before dark and the corresponding inordinate amount of free time meant that I would be a superwoman of sorts in the evenings, capable of cooking gourmet dinners, reading all the classics, studying Setswana, practicing the guitar, and cleaning my house top to bottom. In reality, I am nothing of the sort. I find the darkness oppressive here, and once it falls, I am incapable of completing any major tasks, much less superhuman multi-tasking. I cook easy dinners, grilled cheese or instant soup more often than not, read excessively (I am quickly running out of books), play spider solitaire, and of course, write blog entries. Of course, I do keep a pretty clean house, and I have even started a budget spreadsheet to keep track of my finances, as online banking doesn't seem to be much of an option here at the moment. But in the 3 weeks I've been here, I have yet to cook a full meal or touch my guitar. I bought bananas weeks ago with the intent of making banana bread, but had to throw them out before I got the supplies or the energy to make it. I'm hoping that this lack of energy or purpose in the evenings is a side effect of adjusting to a new lifestyle and ear infections, and that I'll soon be checking everything off of my to-do lists. I'll keep you updated.

My Peace Corps life is starting to taking shape, although ever so slowly. I have a growing list of projects that I think I'll be working on, and finally, this list is based on actual needs and reality. Most of the more concrete projects that are starting to take shape involve the senior secondary school here. I may be a clinic-based volunteer, but I think I'll be working just as closely with the schools. The senior secondary school is the last public school before university here, and many students do not make it that far. Even if they do, drop-outs are a problem, one that I'll be working on, actually. There are many factors that make it difficult for a student to make it through school here. First and foremost is pregnancy. Many of the girls actually do return after giving birth, but when they do, they face more obstacles than ever. The guidance teacher at the school would like to set up a kind of support group for returned mothers, but so far the girls have resisted, fearing the stigma that might come along with membership in such a group. I'm hoping to work with these girls, possibly at the clinic to avoid all the high school drama and stigma. Some of them are clinic patients anyway, so I'll probably get to know them pretty well no matter what.

Poverty makes attending school a struggle, especially when the social work office has difficulty getting food baskets, donated school uniforms, and transport allowance to the students on time. They may need to drop out to get jobs to support their families, or they may have little structure in their homes to reinforce the importance of education. HIV, as usual, complicates matters more. Over ¼ of the students in the school are orphans. They may or may not be HIV positive themselves, but certainly they are affected either way. Most live with extended family with varying levels of care and support, but some live on their own. Many are financially needy, and have trouble finding the means and sometimes the self-discipline to stay in school. The school has organizations run by students to work on these issues, but participation is not impressive. School days are long, and some students have a long commute, and for others, the interest is just not there. There are, of course, dedicated students, but the programs sound like they could use a little life. There are also staff and community-run organizations put together to help support orphans and needy students, but they suffer from a lack of participation as well. This is not necessarily due to lack of interest; rather, it is a lack of time that is the problem. The school day is just as long for teachers as it is for students, and there are faculty meetings to go to, and many have families at home to care for. I'm hoping to work to find solutions to these issues, but I don't know how successful I'll be. I certainly can't add more hours to a day, and that appears to be exactly what's needed.

Other issues are a little more simple. The school library needs books. I'm sure that there must be organizations in place that help with this kind of thing, so I don't think this project should be that complicated. If anyone knows anything about how to go about doing this though, please let me know!

Another issue is pretty familiar to anyone who's ever gone to high school- kids sneaking off to remote corners to smoke and do other dark deeds. Not sure how to handle this one yet, but it's definitely a less formidable issue than others.

I'm glad to finally have a small grasp on what I'll be doing while I'm here, and I'm eager to get started. I really wish I knew what to do around my clinic- most of the time it's so busy that there's barely time to talk, let alone plan new programs, and when it's not busy, everyone spends their time catching up on paperwork and reports. I'd like to spend more time with the community mobilizer, who does a lot of work with home-based care, but we both keep irregular schedules, and once I'm at the clinic, I'm usually put to work anyway. I'm hoping that as I start to feel more comfortable and as my schedule settles into something more predictable, that potential projects will begin to appear. I know the nurses at the clinic regret not having the time to get out into the community to do health presentations and work on prevention, so maybe I'll start from there. I know that I'd also like to focus on regular, everyday health issues in the community, not just HIV. So much attention is heaped on HIV/AIDS here (and rightly so, I suppose), that it is often overlooked that high blood pressure and diabetes are also serious, potentially deadly problems here that many, many people are affected by. Just as in America, people here are often more interested in fixing a problem than preventing it, and that's something I'd like to work on. Interesting- I guess I have a better idea of what I'd like to work on in my clinic than I thought.

With that, it is time for bed. Here's hoping for a good internet connection tomorrow so I can post this!

Happiness is a Hot Shower

written 6/27

I am clean, for the first time in months! My hair is washed and conditioned, I smell like soap, and I have discovered that I am not quite as tan as I thought I was- apparently it was all dirt. I have taken a hot shower (two in fact, in the last 24 hours), and all is again right with the world. This shower comes courtesy of a lovely ear infection that I have been battling for since Thursday. I started antibiotics on Friday, but when I discovered swelling by my jaw on Saturday, the Peace Corps doctor thought it best for me to head down to the Peace Corps office in Gaborone so he could take a look. I didn't argue. One combi, 2 hours on a bus, and an overpriced cab ride later, I made it to Gabs, where the doctor checked me out, declared my ear infection official, gave me some better medications, and sent me off for a free night at a local lodge, since it was too late to head back home to Mahalapye. Before heading to the lodge, I indulged in some American-style fast food at a chain called 'Wimpy's' and grabbed some snacks for the night ahead. The lodge took some finding- I really hate trying to get places in Gaborone. I complain about Mahalapye being big, but Gaborone makes it look absolutely quaint, and after this weekend, I have new appreciation for my home village, despite its lack of hot showers. Anyway, I stayed at Kgale View Lodge, which was tucked away across from the enormous Game City mall. It had very pretty landscaping, outdoor picnic tables, a pool (closed for the 'winter'), and a reception area and dining hall tastefully decorated in a safari theme (of course). My room was small but clean, and the bed was incredibly warm and comfortable, there was a heater I could control, and there was a television with 4 whole channels! I spent the night taking an hour-long hot shower, eating VitaSnack cheddar flavored rice crackers (more addicting than they sound), and watching many episodes of 'Monk' and some South African family drama called 'Wild Hearts' (or something like that).

I woke up in time for the free breakfast, but decided that a second shower was obviously more pressing than mediocre hotel food, and spent the morning getting cleaner than I've been in a long time and watching some police and courtroom dramas. Eventually they kicked me out (really, they came to the room and everything- apparently check-out times are earlier here than they are in the US), so I turned in my key and set up camp in the dining hall to use the wireless internet, where I stressed about the status of my student loans for far too long, while cursing facebook's new photo uploader feature, which decided to take a day off. Finally I realized that I still had to travel at least 3 hours before sunset, and I was on my way. I walked around and around the perimeter of the Game City Mall, reaching dangerous levels of frustration, until finding the corner of the parking lot where all the combis were hiding. I found and hopped on the correct one, and made my way to the bus rank, where I found a bus home pretty quickly. The bus rank in Gaborone is big, and very busy and chaotic, but it's actually pretty easy to navigate once you get the hang of it. The taxis and combis generally stay on one side, and the buses line up in rows on the other side. Each row is marked with a sign that tells which city the buses in the row are headed toward. The buses line up, and passengers are herded onto the first bus in line. When that bus is full, it leaves, and the next bus pulls up to begin boarding. There's no real schedule, buses just leave when they're full. This could be a pain if you're going to some remote place that not many people go to, but my village is directly between the two largest cities in Botswana, so I'll almost never be stuck waiting and waiting for a bus to show up or fill up. The bus was empty when I boarded, but within 10 minutes it was overflowing, and we were on our way. I guess I timed the day perfectly- I made it home about 5 minutes before sunset. Now I am wishing for yet another hot shower, and wondering why no one every told me how loud the wind can be at night here. It's whipping around my house, making it groan and creak with every gust. Not only that, but a dog appeared on my compound a few days ago. This should be a good development, because dogs here usually provide extra security, but this one won't shut up. It barks and barks constantly, with no provocation or reason at all. It may be a long night.

Lesson of the day: If you don't want random heads and appendages to pop in through your window and directly into your face trying to sell you things or ask you for money, be sure to close the window next to your seat tightly any time the bus is parked. I had a floating head try to sell me water today, and when I told it I wasn't thirsty, it insisted that I should give it 5 pula anyway, as a favor. I declined. Rather pushy for a floating head, I thought.